Halogenated ethers such as sevoflurane, isoflurane, enflurane, desflurane and halothane are used as inhalation anesthetic agents worldwide. Typically these agents are used in closed or semi-closed anesthesia circuits wherein all, or some portion of, the patient expired gases containing the agent are rebreathed. In these anesthesia circuits, the carbon dioxide (CO2) expired by the patient must be removed to prevent its buildup that would cause hypoxia in the patient. The present universal practice for removal of CO2 in these systems is to pass the expired gases through a bed of alkali bases which convert the CO2 first to carbonic acid then bind it as an alkali carbonate. However, all of the halogenated ethers suffer some level of degradation in the presence of strong bases which results in the formation of undesirable by-products among which are carbon monoxide, formats and, in the case of sevoflurane, two olefinic compounds, pentafluoroisopropenyl fluoromethyl ether, (PIFE, C4H2F6O), also known as Compound A, and pentafluoromethoxy isopropyl fluoromethyl ether, (PMFE, C5H6F6O), also known as Compound B. Compound A has been shown to be nephrotoxic in rats. Further it is known that the basic materials presently in use are inefficient at the removal of carbon monoxide, some of which is endogenous due to the natural breakdown of various hemoglobin compounds in the mammalian circulatory system.